badges plus what way forward for strike?

[goinpostal]

get your "i support the postal workers" badges here - hundreds bought already and profits donated to CWU.

The postmen and women always strike twice!
Second CWU strike even more solid - but poses question of how to win

Postal workers have shut down Royal Mail for the second time in two weeks. The walk out lasted from Thursday night to Friday night, 12-13 July, and brought collection, sorting and deliveries to a juddering halt across the country.

The latest strike topped even the huge 29 June industrial action in terms of its strength. The CWU postal union stating that 99% of its members were out in the big cities and largest workplaces and over 90% in all other areas. The action is not only solid, it is growing, with 5,000 new members joining the union in the last three weeks of the dispute, some 2,000 new starters and 3,000 already employed staff.

Enthusiasm for the strike is as strong as ever. Picket lines were larger and livelier despite rain, as workers brought chairs and barbeques the better to stay on lines all day - in Sheepscar Delivery Office one dressed in a giant rabbit costume to win support from passing traffic! At another delivery office school kids from the nearby school gave the postal workers three cheers and marched back to class singing Postman Pat! Solidarity visits by railworkers, teachers, civil servants and other public sector trade unionists showed that posties are not isolated.

A battlebus toured London gathering up posties from picket lines, and stopping at train stations to pick up CWU activists from offices outside of London. It rode through London getting cheers from the public and stopped outside Royal Mail HQ in Old Street for a picket of 500 postal workers, with CWU leaders Billy Hayes and Dave Ward demanding Allan Leighton, chairman of the government-owned Royal Mail, negotiate with the union to raise basic pay, which currently languishes at £310 a week, well below the average rate across industries of £400.

The media claims the strike is only about pay and that greedy posties are rejecting a 2.5% pay rise. In reality this is a pay cut, since inflation is well over 4%, and comes with strings attached - 40,000 job losses, teamworking, pension cuts, and a huge hike in the workload - that will destroy the job and the union. Yet last week the Mirror exposed the fact that Royal Mail will hand £40 million in bonuses to its managers - including paying over £1 million to CEO Adam Crozier. So the money is there for fat cat managers but not for those who do the work! This insult has caused outrage among postal workers, and only strengthened their resolve in the run up to the second strike.

The thousands of new members, the turn out for the strike and enthusiastic participation of workers on picket lines all show that the dispute has growing momentum. Now the union needs to build on that base of solid support and deal a decisive blow to Royal Mail in order to win.

Royal Mail: down but not out

Royal Mail is worried and not sure of the next step forward. So far management has backed off from confrontation. They had to get casuals in on £5.50 an hour to clear the backlog in some places. There are reports of managers pressuring workers to do overtime and clear the surplus mail caused by the strike, sparking "cut-offs" in many offices, as workers insist on working to their contracted hours and refuse to complete their walks.

But Royal Mail will not sit on its hands for long. Soon it will test the water and attempt to impose changes or victimise CWU members. Indeed, on Monday 16 July, 150 posties in Cowley Mail Centre, Oxfordshire walked out in response to the suspension of two strikers for activity relating to the strike, one of whom is a key union rep. Whether this is an isolated local provocation or the start of a national policy by Royal Mail, it is impossible to say yet. However, the unofficial strike is the correct response and should spread if management does not back down.

A month from now the company will impose later start times (6:00am or later) in offices up and down the country, starting on Monday 13 August. Not only will this mean a loss of early shift allowances (worth £12 or more a week), but also many posties will finish later, ruining their childcare and other plans. The pistols are cocked for a decisive showdown - if it is not triggered by local victimisations by management before then. The clock is ticking, and the CWU needs to be prepared.

All out - and stay out - to win!

On the picket lines and at work the next day, postal workers debated their next move and how to win the dispute. After the initial excitement of finally standing up to strike a blow against Royal Mail after a year of cuts, many are recognising that the one-day strikes will not force the company to change track. Many different proposals are being debated: an overtime ban instead of a strike or to complement limited days of action? To try a two day strike or a rolling strike with different sections or regions out every day to create maximum chaos?

A significant and growing number are discussing harder hitting action than this: a full week of strike action or all-out indefinite stoppage. An all-out strike is certainly the quickest and surest way to force Royal Mail to concede to the postal workers' demands, not only on wages but also on job security, decent working hours and conditions, and services for the public.

Under pressure from below, the CWU leadership is beginning to take a harder line. Dave Ward, Deputy General Secretary Postal for the CWU, told The Observer: "We will escalate the strike action this week. We are going to announce more strikes. At the same time, we are stepping up the political pressure because it is untenable for the government to sit on the sidelines when a company they own and people they appointed [Crozier and Leighton] are refusing to negotiate."

Now postal workers need to up the pressure. We should not nudge forward at a snail's pace - two days in two weeks - but take a major step up right away. Workers Power believes that it will take an all out indefinite strike to break Royal Mail's plan - and slowly but surely ever more posties are coming to same conclusion.

Tactically, now is the time to make such a move. The strike has gone well for the CWU, badly for Royal Mail and, behind the scenes, the government. The private mail companies, like TNT and Business Post, are unable to mount a full scabbing operation - yet. The prospect of an indefinite strike, costing business billions of pounds, would have an enormously persuasive effect on management and government strategists alike.

Other public sector workers take steps towards action

A victory for postal workers would also blow a hole in the government's relentless programme of cuts and privatisation in all public services. Indeed, unless the postal strike is linked to a strategy to stop the neoliberal assault on health, education, and central and local government services, then a victory on pay would only delay Royal Mail's plans, not decisively defeat them.

Millions of public sector workers in different unions are heading towards strike action against Gordon Brown's pay freeze. Postal workers must use every opportunity to encourage them to bring their ballots forward and join in the action.

Indeed, the Public and Commercial Services union already has a mandate for national action and has struck twice; in addition many civil service departments and local offices have their own grievances over privatisation, job cuts and low pay to strike over. Already since last week's postal strike, the Royal College of Nursing and local authority services unions, Unison and Unite, have announced plans to ballot members for industrial action against the public sector real pay cut. Schoolteachers and college lecturers are also in dispute over cuts.

Activists should demand that the CWU leadership immediately calls an emergency meeting with other public sector unions, asking them to give real solidarity, not just in the form of financial contributions, welcome as those are, but by bringing forward their claims and uniting their ballots with ours, and their members with postal workers on the streets and picket lines.

Trade unionists, anti-privatisation campaigners and socialist groups are already setting up local solidarity committees or public sector pay campaigns, such as those in Bristol and Leeds, to create the beginnings of grassroots coordination. These solidarity committees can pressure the national union leaders to co-ordinate demonstrations and strikes, and immediately take steps towards organising such action locally themselves without waiting for the green light from the top.

Unity in action would not only increase the impact of all the strikes across the different sectors, it would also draw in massive support from across the working class. Wherever local schools are threatened by the privatised elite academies programme or council housing is being privatised, wherever local services are being slashed or hospitals closed, strong campaigns have sprung up. A united public sector strike could provide a focus for opposition to privatisation and closures and force the Labour government into a strategic u-turn. This is the real potential that workers and users of public services could unlock.

But will our leaders take that road without our pressure? So far all the public sector trade union leaders have been long on talk about unity but short on concrete action. They have been stringing out ballots (teachers in the NUT may not even start striking until January, despite their conference voting for a ballot in Easter!) so that they are in fact not co-ordinated. A mass movement at the grassroots of the unions can proceed to unite locally in action while building up the pressure on our union leaders to take such initiatives nationally.

Our jobs and pay - our dispute and decisions

There is no time like the present to build up the strength of the CWU. A huge proportion of the union's membership is active and interested in the strike. By electing workplace and branch-wide strike committees at mass meetings to discuss the dispute, we can make the most of these new and re-activated militants. Everything - from writing and distributing strike bulletins, and raising money for a hardship fund to ensure no one is starved back to work, to organising a picket rota and speaking to other groups of workers - has to be organised.

By increasing the pool of activists, these tasks can be achieved more efficiently. Every local manager will know that we are getting better prepared. He or she will report back up their chain of command that the CWU is growing stronger.

Local strike committees are also essential for the strategic running of the dispute. Based on recallable workplace delegates elected in mass meetings, these committees could become not only the local body running the strike, but also the base for a national steering group of such delegates that controls the whole strike. Only such a leadership is capable of relaying the mood and wishes of the rank and file members and implementing the collective decisions of the union to the workplace. The alternative of delegating all decisions to the top can lead to lost opportunities and even a sell-out.

Don't call off the strike for negotiations

The current stance of the CWU Executive, for example, is that it will call off all strikes if Royal Mail agrees to negotiate. While this sounds very reasonable, in reality Leighton and Crozier will use any "return to normal working" to delay agreement on our terms, to impose new conditions and to victimise key militants. For these reasons, we shouldn't call off our action until all our demands are agreed.

Another important lesson from the past is that any agreement should be subject to a vote by the members: everyone wants a pay rise but postal workers shouldn't have to barter away jobs and conditions in the process. Remember last summer? Poster workers were ready to strike, but instead got a crap pay rise (one below inflation) and the Efficiency Agreement was signed off that allowed cuts in every office. All this did was delay the strike by 12 months - during which time, in Manvers, Stoke, Exeter and elsewhere, we were locked into local disputes over locally imposed changes to conditions. This time, there should be a discussion about what any agreement will mean in practice, and a vote taken at mass meetings before 140,000 postal workers are demobilised.

In this way postal workers can not only win their strike and break Brown's pay freeze, they can take a big step in transforming the CWU and other unions into fighting democratic organisations of class struggle. They can once again become a pole of attraction drawing the millions of unorganised workers into battle to reverse the 25 year long capitalist offensive begun under Thatcher.

Next steps every CWU activist can take

Reps and activists in the offices can move things in this direction straight away. Let's put resolutions through our branches or, if these are not meeting, circulate petitions and letters demanding that the CWU Postal Executive:

• Escalate the action One-day strikes will not force Royal Mail into serious negotiations. Step up the action immediately - up to and including an all-out, indefinite strike.

• Unite our struggles The NEC needs to immediately approach other public sector unions that are campaigning against the 2% pay limit to co-ordinate our action, including strikes - set the date now!

• Prepare to defend ourselves As the strike goes on Royal Mail may resort to imposing changes or victimising members for legitimate trade union activities. An attack on one will be regarded as an attack on all. The NEC needs to meet any victimisations or unilateral impositions by immediately escalating the action nationwide.

For more on public sector pay strategy click here

For a round up of from the picket lines on 13 June click here

[Carnoustie]

Where was this article from ? We all know about the dispute in Oxford, but whoever wrote "the unofficial strike is the correct response and should spread if management does not back down" is a total idiot.

We will lose this battle if we get suckered into an unofficial dispute. I guarantee that the people who are belly-aching about losing two days pay already will not commit to an open-ended walkout that could last for days, weeks, months ? (who could possibly know how long)

UNOFFICIAL ACTION WOULD BE AN ACT OF MASS SUICIDE. We would end up being forced to sign back-to-work agreements that would include all of the 'strings' that we're bloody well fighting against. And every last one of us would have the terms of the back-to-work agreement imposed on us - those who walked AND those that kept a level head and stuck with a LEGAL campaign that might take longer, but still gives us a chance of some sort of victory.

Do not listen to any cries that suggest unofficial walkouts as a good thing for fecks sake ! Think of the bigger picture.
Don't throw the solid support we've held so far down the toilet, no matter what the provocation !!!!!!

[johnnyp]

Where was this article from ? We all know about the dispute in Oxford, but whoever wrote "the unofficial strike is the correct response and should spread if management does not back down" is a total idiot.

We will lose this battle if we get suckered into an unofficial dispute. I guarantee that the people who are belly-aching about losing two days pay already will not commit to an open-ended walkout that could last for days, weeks, months ? (who could possibly know how long)

UNOFFICIAL ACTION WOULD BE AN ACT OF MASS SUICIDE. We would end up being forced to sign back-to-work agreements that would include all of the 'strings' that we're bloody well fighting against. And every last one of us would have the terms of the back-to-work agreement imposed on us - those who walked AND those that kept a level head and stuck with a LEGAL campaign that might take longer, but still gives us a chance of some sort of victory.

Do not listen to any cries that suggest unofficial walkouts as a good thing for fecks sake ! Think of the bigger picture.
Don't throw the solid support we've held so far down the toilet, no matter what the provocation !!!!!!

This is so true ,i hope everyone reads and sticks buy what you have said here friend

[disheartened]

Where was this article from ? We all know about the dispute in Oxford, but whoever wrote "the unofficial strike is the correct response and should spread if management does not back down" is a total idiot.

We will lose this battle if we get suckered into an unofficial dispute. I guarantee that the people who are belly-aching about losing two days pay already will not commit to an open-ended walkout that could last for days, weeks, months ? (who could possibly know how long)

UNOFFICIAL ACTION WOULD BE AN ACT OF MASS SUICIDE. We would end up being forced to sign back-to-work agreements that would include all of the 'strings' that we're bloody well fighting against. And every last one of us would have the terms of the back-to-work agreement imposed on us - those who walked AND those that kept a level head and stuck with a LEGAL campaign that might take longer, but still gives us a chance of some sort of victory.

Do not listen to any cries that suggest unofficial walkouts as a good thing for fecks sake ! Think of the bigger picture.
Don't throw the solid support we've held so far down the toilet, no matter what the provocation !!!!!!

Spot On Hertfordshirehog......Managerment are going out of their way at Watford Mail Center to wind the staff up and hope someone refuses an instruction,they then can suspend the indivisual and know it would cause the other staff to walk out in support and unofficial Industrial Action....their main tactics so far are..........................

No overtime.....but rub the posties nose in it by flooding the office with casuals on Nights-Earlies-Lates.
Cancelling lunch time collections and sending the drivers out on walks that have cut off.
Read my earlier thread http://www.royalmailchat.co.uk/forum/vi ... php?t=2787

The lads are doing well and have not took the bait so far.

Steve[/url]

[Carnoustie]

Stay strong, and keep this phrase at the back of your mind when they're trying to wind you up ....

THEY DON'T LIKE IT UP 'EM, MR MANNERING !!!

If it makes you laugh just thinking about it, seeing you grinning is bound to wind THEM up

[rhino49]

Stay strong, and keep this phrase at the back of your mind when they're trying to wind you up ....

THEY DON'T LIKE IT UP 'EM, MR MANNERING !!!

If it makes you laugh just thinking about it, seeing you grinning is bound to wind THEM up

It helps if you imagine their face looking up from a toilet bowl in silent expectation. Don't be goaded - act superior.